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The Great Stadium Debate – part 2

It’s now Wednesday August 11. Or at least that’s what most people would call today. In Hamilton, however, we’re calling it “D Day + 1”. As in “Decision Day + 1”. If you don’t understand the reference, read yesterday’s blog entry which serves as the prequel to this one. After an 11 hour marathon session, Hamilton City Council voted just after 8:00 p.m. last night to put the proposed Pan Am Games stadium on the West Harbour site. I did follow some of the discussions yesterday as best I could. Our local newspaper (the Hamilton Spectator) did a good job, and several other media sources in the City did the same. I found it interesting, however, that Cable 14 (our local community cable channel) broadcast the proceedings, but on a tape delay basis. So if you got home after work at 5:30 and turned on Cable 14 thinking that what you were watching was a live feed from City Hall – not quite. I think they were actually running a couple of hours behind. But at least they were covering the session. The Spectator was supposedly offering a live video feed on their Web site, but I never did manage to access it. Speaking of The Spectator, they have several articles on all this in today’s paper – which is to be expected. If you’re reading this and want to follow along, have a look at their Web site:

Now that it’s the day after the vote (12-3 in favour of the West Harbour site, with 1 abstention), I’d like to take a moment to offer my take on all this. I must confess that I am a bit disappointed with this decision. While I do commend Hamilton City Council for actually making a decision on a stadium site (at long last!), I think that WH is the wrong place for a stadium. In my opinion, it is not an economically viable location. I agree entirely with the Tiger Cats and others who have major concerns about the site.

I noted several reasons why I don’t like the West Harbour in my earlier entry, and while I don’t want to belabour the point, let me add one more. The Tiger Cats currently play at Ivor Wynne Stadium, located in the city’s East end. There are some “issues” with the stadium (more about that later!), but it also shares one major similarity with the West Harbour location. Both are in the middle of residential neighbourhoods with no immediate highway access. In each case, you must use city streets for a good part of the trip once you leave either the QEW or the 403. Just as there are limited parking options in the neighbourhood surrounding Ivor Wynne, the West Harbour is also not a “car-friendly” environment. As a result, it’s difficult to attract fans from outside Hamilton itself to either location. And if the Cats are going to attract more fans, grow their busienss, and expand their core market beyond Hamilton to places like the Niagara region, Halton and Peel regions, Kitchener/Waterloo, Cambridge or Guelph, you’ve got to have a stadium that has great highway access. You could have had that at the East Mountain site. But you don’t at WH.

I’m sure that those who do support WH cheered long and loud into the night, and praised the Council for what they think is a great decision. But if any of you are reading my words right now, let me ask you a couple of important questions. What exactly have you won? Is the West Harbour really the best site anywhere in Hamilton for a stadium? And will this really be the jump-start for downtown Hamilton’s renewal/revitalization that you all seem to think it will be? I would say no in each case – and just because Council voted for this, don’t expect the groundbreaking ceremony and construction crews on the site any time soon. All they did last night was vote on a concept that may still never happen. When I was just a wee lad many years ago, I remember learning an expression “You cut off your nose to spite your face”. A more folksy way of describing a Pyrrhic victory. Yes, you won something – but at what cost, and what exactly did you win? That expression was how my parents and grandparents might have described last night’s vote.

I suppose the question we’re all going to ask now is what’s next? My understanding is that the next step involves discussions with many other parties. In particular the Pan Am Games organizers. Then there’s the federal and provincial governments. What about the Tiger Cats? Unless I read it wrong, it seems to me that Bob Young, Scott Mitchell and others associated with the football team have made it crystal clear that the team will never play at WH. Which leads me to another question. So you build a stadium at the West Harbour which hosts the soccer competition for something like 2 or 3 weeks as part of the 2015 Pan Am Games. But then what? Who will be the “anchor” tenant after the Games are done? Probably not the Tiger Cats. Sure, you could open up the stadium for schools, community groups and so on. But let’s not be naive here – it takes money to run these facilities. And unless you have at least one major anchor tenant who can make a profit and run the stadium in an economically feasible way – then it’s all for naught. From what I have read, the Tiger Cats rejected WH because they felt that you couldn’t make that location work. I’m not an economist, far from it. But given that I live only a few minutes walk from the West Harbour site and I know that piece of land well, I think the Cats are absolutely right. Which is why I said yesterday that my preferred choice is to make WH an extension of Bayfront Park – just across the railway tracks. Do some low density stuff. Some walking trails, picnic areas. An outdoor concert ampitheatre that could be a summer home not just for things like the Brott Music Festival, but also for organizations like the Toronto Symphony or the Hamilton Philharmonic. Festivals like the Hamilton Mardi Gras that I attended last Saturday and then wrote about here could use it. Can you imagine thousands of people dancing to the live sounds of calypso, soca or other “island” music on the West Harbour Concert stage? I could – and I think it could work very well.

How about the Tiger Cats? What’s next for them? It is becoming increasingly apparent that Ivor Wynne Stadium is not a long-term option. The stadium is now 80 years old and even though it has undergone many renovations and upgrades over the years, you can tell as soon as you walk in that the “old girl” is showing her age. I can say that from my own experience because I usually get to 1 or 2 games a year, and always enjoy it. Ivor Wynne is a great place to watch a football game. It’s friendly and intimate, and the atmosphere is second to none. But it wasn’t built yesterday or even last week or last year. It was opened in 1930 for the very first British Empire Games – now known as the Commonwealth Games. And just as the Empire itself is now just an entry in the history books, Ivor Wynne Stadium’s time is pretty much gone. You can only plaster over the cracks and apply a fresh coat of paint so often. The Cats current lease with the City of Hamilton expires as of January 1 2012. And as it stands now, I seriously doubt that Bob Young and the gang will want to renew it again. If Mayor Fred Eisenberger and the gang at City Hall are smart, they should recognize this. They had the chance to fix the problem by selecting a site other than WH, whether it was the East Mountain or not, and with last night’s vote, they blew it. Or to put this in football terms, yes – they fumbled the ball.

I think all options are on the table now for the team. Including, shocking as it sounds, the real possibility that Hamilton could lose the team entirely. Can you say “Moncton Tiger Cats”? How about the “Halifax Tiger Cats”? Ottawa City Council recently approved the “Lansdowne Live” proposal that will include the rebuilding of Frank Clair Stadium. But maybe the CFL doesn’t need to give Ottawa a brand new expansion franchise. How does the “Ottawa Tiger Cats” sound?

If they move to Quebec City, another option recently mentioned by the media, how about “Les Tigre-Chats du Quebec”? Hmm – could be a great rivalry with my hometown Montreal Alouettes. After all, the Montreal Canadiens-Quebec Nordiques rivalry heated up the ice every winter from the late 1970’s until the Nordiques moved to Denver and became the Colorado Avalanche in 1995. It could certainly happen in the Canadian Football League too.

But before people start organizing “Save Our Tiger Cats” rallies, singing funeral dirges, wailing in the streets or organizing “wakes” for the Cats, let’s get real here. I think moving the team out of Hamilton is very much a desperation “last resort” option. We have just seen a debate over 2 major locations. But you can’t convince me that it had to be either the West Harbour or the East Mountain. In a city of something like 600,000 with a large physical area, are you really telling me that these are the only 2 sites that could work? Some folks have mentioned Confederation Park as a good stadium site. And that’s just one. I am sure there could be other feasible locations within the City.

Did you notice that I just said “within the City”? Do the Tiger Cats really need to build a new stadium within Hamilton itself? There must be appropriate sites in the surrounding cities and towns that would be glad to host the team. St. Catharines? Grimsby? Niagara Falls? Or if you want to go towards Toronto – how about Oakville, Milton, Georgetown, Mississauga, Burlington, Guelph, Cambridge or Kitchener – just to name a few communities within easy travelling distance of Hamilton?

I remember a while back there was talk about going in with their hated rivals the Toronto Argonauts on a joint new stadium within easy access of both cities. Sounds strange, but if you look at the National Football League, both the New York Jets and Giants play in the same stadium – across the Hudson River from the towers of midtown Manhattan, in New Jersey. The Cats and Argos could easily do the same.

OK – time for the “wild card” entry. And in fact this next idea was mentioned by a columnist in today’s Spectator. There’s land available near the Aldershot GO station, in the west end of Burlington, at the intersection of Waterdown Road and Highway 403. It just so happens that this land is already zoned for entertainment and related stadium purposes. Not only that, but the province is building a new interchange at Waterdown Road and the 403 that should be ready sometime in the fall of 2010 – which would make accessing the site that much easier. What makes this even more interesting is that the Tiger Cats know about this, and in fact have talked about this idea before, including media coverage such as the following article from earlier this year:
http://www.thespec.com/article/765647

Although this option has been dismissed in the past, I think this site is a great idea and should be seriously re-examined. You are next to a major highway (the 403) – so getting there by car would be easy. Close to the Aldershot GO, so it works by public transit too. And if there is also sufficient land to facilitate other commercial development as a spin-off or in conjunction with the stadium, then this baby really is a “win-win”.

I think this Aldershot thing is really worth pursuing. Bob Young and Scott Mitchell – are you guys reading this? If I were them, I would put together some kind of private consortium to fund the thing. Perhaps Cam Jackson (the Mayor of Burlington) and other “movers and shakers” in their city could get in on this and make it a public-private partnership. The potential here on so many levels is quite remarkable.

Here’s another possibility. As part of the Pan Am Games organization, Burlington has offered to host some of the soccer competitions. See where I am going here? No – then I’ll spell it out. The City will need to build an appropriate stadium for the competitions. So why not tie this in with the Tiger Cats need for a stadium and build something which will also make economic sense for the Cats? Perhaps at Aldershot, or at another suitable location within Burlington. It could really work well for all parties.

And while one could say that if the new stadium is built at Aldershot or other location in Burlington, they now become the “Burlington Tiger Cats”, there’s no need to go that route. There are many precedents for sports teams playing outside their “named” city. I mentioned the 2 New York football teams – even though they are called the New York Jets and the New York Giants, they don’t play in New York City at all, but in New Jersey. The New York Red Bulls, the city’s Major League Soccer franchise, recently opened their new state-of-the-art stadium, the Red Bull Arena. Where is it? You guessed it – New Jersey. Another New York sports team, the Islanders, have their arena in Uniondale, located on Long Island (hence the name “Islanders”). And lest you think this only happens in New York, how about another NFL team, the Washington Redskins. Their stadium is not in Washington, but is actually located in one of the nearby Maryland suburbs. The Detroit Pistons basketball team’s arena isn’t in Detroit itself. It’s in Auburn Hills, another suburban setting. In other words, there’s nothing wrong with a team called the Hamilton Tiger Cats playing next door in Burlington. Or any other nearby city.

Time to finish off my “rant”. I must confess that I am tired hearing about this whole stadium thing – but this thing has been going for a long time and I suspect it’s only just begun. Let’s all just “chill out” for a while, let the emotions cool down and take a rational look at what’s next. And since I am writing this “live” from our HAPPEN meeting at the Burlington Art Centre (and it’s coming up on our end time of 12 noon), I really think I should publish this for all of you and then get back to work.

Thanks for reading this, as well as yesterday’s entry. These are interesting days for the City of Hamilton, the Tiger Cats and the 2015 Pan Am Games. I wish everyone involved the very best, and like everyone else here in Hamilton and surrounding area I will continue to follow this with interest.